Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Happy 72nd, John Lennon

Sometimes I wonder if God is real, and if he did ever send his son Jesus back to earth, the same way the bible says, could the son of God have been John Lennon? Instead of being 'bigger' than 'Jay-sis,' like he once claimed about the Beatles, maybe Lennon himself was, well . . . Before you think of me as one of these guys who has Lennon posters hanging all over the place, and parrots his peace-and-love quotes to everyone, understand that I am not. In fact I’d probably call myself more of a Stones guy than a Beatles guy, and I actually like McCartney’s stuff better than Lennon’s, but I recognize that John Lennon is what he is, the most important musician who has ever lived. And it is a fact that Lennon pretty much levitated above the rest of humanity while he was on earth, everything he touched turned to solid gold, every song, every album, everything. Then one day, in NYC, 1980, some slime ball crawls out of the gutter, and assassinates Lennon for pretty much no reason, killing a man who preached peace and love, and was seemingly touched by the hand of God in everything he did.

After Chapman killed Lennon, he sat down right then and there, outside the Dakota, started reading CATCHER IN THE RYE, almost like he was content to be arrested, as he had succeeded in doing the Devil’s work. In fact, Chapman said to police, after the killing, that he was in some small way the Devil. So if God, and the Devil, and all that stuff’s real, was the death of Lennon a round in the eternal battle of God vs. the Devil? Using a meaningless loser to destroy maybe the greatest human on earth at the time, the most influential even, and certainly the most important figure in all of music history, and what impacts more people on a total scale than music? What cuts through race, creed, country, and language more than music?

If you were God and wanted to employ an outlet to spread your message, wouldn’t it be a singer that touches the entire world? I mean if you think about it, why did this Chapman creep, who never did a thing for anybody, and seemingly had no other reason to live, kill Lennon, a man who has literally touched every person who has ever lived? Why? Just to do it? Just to say he did it? It’s scary if you think about the fact that someone so powerful, and important, and impactful on a universal level could be ended by a complete nobody, who just rots in a jail cell now, his meaningless life interrupted only by this meaningless assassination. It's scary if you think about it. And if you ask me, Lennon's assassination is the saddest in world history. Pointless. Just . . . pointless.

I know a guy who once went fishing with Lennon in '79, well, tried to go. All John wanted to do was relax, cast a few lines, but the media was following their boat, messing up the whole quiet idea. The guy said Lennon was real laid back, a nice guy, but he was what he was. So Lennon apologized, excused himself, and the fishing trip went on without him. The sad side of being a universal icon, I suppose. Too bad.